What is Truly “Terrifying” in the Abortion Debate?

With the McCullen v. Coakley case before the U. S. Supreme Court, the pro-abortion forces seem determined to “prove” that so-called bubble zones and buffer zones are essential to protect women entering abortion clinics. Cortney O’Brien and LifeNews.com highlight a story from Cosmo magazine in which six women share their stories about “terrifying” and “infuriating” interactions they have had with pro-life advocates outside of abortion clinics.

As it turned out, most of the pro-abortion women describe experiences that are hardly objectively “terrifying” (one woman claims she was called a “murderer” but this could so easily have been a phrase such as “please don’t kill your baby,” which is often heard as “You’re a MURDERER!”). Another woman describes what was, if true, undeniably a battery, but one is forced to question her credibility. A group of people is throwing things at another group of people and the police wouldn’t take any action? The other women described being approached by pro-lifers who said “terrifying” things like “Have mercy on your baby” and told her they loved her. If Cosmo went looking for statements to show how horrible pro-lifers are, and these are apparently the six worst they could find, what does that lack of evidence suggest? Perhaps pro-life advocates are by and large peaceful, maybe even winsome, in their attempts to give women alternatives to abortion.

On the other hand, how much more “terrifying” is it for women to hear about alternatives to abortion than to face the horrors that go on daily in abortion clinics? Kristi Brown, a volunteer attorney with Life Legal Defense Foundation has documented the terror that two women faced at the hands of abortion doctors in any eye-opening piece at Live Action. One woman was forced to undergo a surgical abortion without anesthesia—and it was later discovered that the abortion had not been completed, the doctor having left part of the aborted baby inside of her. Another woman changed her mind prior to the procedure beginning, but was forced to proceed with an abortion against her will. Her child’s head was left inside her womb.

What these women, and countless others, have gone through begs the question: what is truly terrifying?